


ravenous, ravenous

by ladyfriday



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, broadway Eurydice, broadway Orpheus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22962733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyfriday/pseuds/ladyfriday
Summary: When he looks up and spots her, standing paces away, his whole face lights up. “Eurydice,” he says, breathy and hopeful, and damn him for how her name sounds in his voice.Home, he'd promised her.
Relationships: Eurydice & Hermes (Hadestown), Eurydice/Orpheus (Hadestown), Hermes & Orpheus (Hadestown)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 58





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> first fic posted of this decade! and first time posting on a leap day! i guess it's fitting that it's this piece that i've been furiously (by my standards) working on. this piece is meant to be part of a larger universe, the inspiration for which came to me on a fateful day in october of last year ;) . it's going to be slowburn in a way that the source material isn't. come along for the ride, if you wish?
> 
> (apologies in advance.)
> 
> title from young man in america by anais mitchell.

She’s got three quarters in her coat pocket. Pinched between her thumb and forefinger, Eurydice rubs them as she walks, the metal grinding against each other. A distant while ago, the coins had been a reassuring weight at her side, cold as the bitter wind stinging her nose and chapping her lips. Then; there had been more than the three, and the metal jangling around like a rattle in her pocket had been a comfort. A lullaby and a child’s blanket, soothing her to sleep when all she had for cover was her coat. Now; the remaining coins are warm to the touch, as if they’d stolen what little heat her body had held.

There’s something gritty in her pocket. Not sand, nor gravel, but something in between. It crawls under her fingernails, the bitten tips and cracked cuticles coloured a grey so dark it may as well be black. It creeps through the seams of her coat. On off days, when she takes a stick to it, ashy clouds billow from it, like puffs of cigarette smoke. Her meager attempts to preserve some level of hygiene always ends in coughing fits.

The man who’d travelled with her in a freight car between Colorado and Kansas had called it dust.

“It gets everywhere,” he’d said into the dark, his voice raspy. There’d been a whistle in his words, or perhaps it’d been the wheeze settled in his chest. She’d heard it in the silence of the night, each breath, a heave.

(She’d never ended up seeing his face, but when she flips through her memories, she draws him as grizzled, face prickled with shocks of white hair, too close cut to be called a beard, too long to be called stubble. Cheeks sunken in and clothes that had been soaked through enough times that they never dried quite right anymore. She’d smelled it for the first half of the journey, until she couldn’t quite smell anything anymore. Eurydice had heard of food turning rotten, but she’d never thought clothing could spoil.)

Eurydice pulls the lapels of her coat tighter against her body. As the winter drags on, the travellers crossing her path get sicker. The ice settles in their joints, the wind blows the dust everywhere, every breath turns their lungs blacker. Her tattered handkerchief soaked in water can only protect her so far. Fatigue is settling in, her stomach whines. It too is tired, and fully fledged growls take energy that she can’t spare.

The train had taken her to the end of the line, here in this town called New Asphodel, and the last of her funds had been traded a pit stop ago, for a bowl of warm broth to soothe her cracked throat. What remained; three quarters could buy her neither a meal, nor a place to rest. Eurydice rolls her shoulders and cracks her neck. Her backpack full of nothing gets heavier with every step she takes down this barely-lit alley, the rusted lamp posts casting shadows on the wall.

There’s little she wouldn’t trade for a safe place to set it down, but what is safe in this strange place?

A ways down, there’s a stream of light from a door left open, hanging wide on creaking hinges. She’s five sidewalk squares from it, when the _smell_ bows her over. Fatty pork, charred on a grill, slow roasted potatoes. Eurydice swallows, takes a shuffled step closer. There’s something simmering, mixed with sweet carrots, a rich broth made from the bones of a gamey bird. Creamy corn stirred in melted butter.

The edge of a wooden crate slams into her chest, she stumbles back, arms pressed to her midsection. The corner had got her in the hollow of her stomach. She takes a breath, but the pain _claws_. It’ll leave a bruise, as everything else does. 

“Oh my gosh,” the guy begins, breathy and rushed. “I’m—”

The crate falls to the ground in a clatter, the cans knocking against each other.

He’s tall and gangly, all bones and little else. His boots are scuffed, the soles cracked. The hems on his pants are frayed. He’s got an apron on, dirt patterning the once-white fabric in dark smudges. The left corner is folded over, the wind pressing the fabric against his legs.

“I…oh…” he mumbles, rubbing his hand through his hair, forcing up the longer strands on top.

In the light of the doorway, she sees his ears turn red, a flush streaking across his cheeks. It matches the bandana at his throat, a spot of colour against the dirty white of his tee. _He must be crazy_ , she thinks. That he’d stepped out with nothing but an apron for cover. When there’s a storm in the air, the wind growing colder, the clouds above turning dark as the season’s mood shifts. Commonplace for this time of year, but this person doesn’t seem to understand, wandering in his half-sleeved shirt.

The snapped _watch it_ , on the tip of her tongue dies in her throat.

“Boy!” thunders a man from inside, his gravelly voice climbing an octave in his fury. “How many times have I told you not to leave the damned door open? I don’t care what Hermes says, this month’s coal’s coming out of your paycheque!”

He shuffles back, his shoes dragging on the unpaved road, and races inside what must be a kitchen, leaving his crate of groceries at her feet. It’s filled to the brim, cans of preserved vegetables, jars of jam. A single block of butter and a wheel of cheese wrapped in brown paper. Eurydice swallows; that wheel would feed her for weeks. A month, if she rationed it carefully. Right then and there, she might finish the whole thing in one sitting, but she’d taught her body to forget its want, when she could barely satisfy its need. Had learned the hard way that a day’s feast would end in a month’s famine. But the food, hungry though she is, hadn’t been left for her.

What goes around, comes around and Eurydice curses the Fates but she won’t provoke them.

When she turns the corner and walks around to the entrance on the main road, she spies a sign, letters outlined in red-hued lights. It reads Tip tina’s, _Tipitina’s_ , she realizes when she gets closer. The _i_ in the middle has gone dark, the lit up sign a discordant splash of modern colour on an otherwise ancient building. It might’ve stood there for centuries, cobbled together with stones and cement, untouched by drought and floods and winter storms where dust coloured the snow and it fell to the ground like volcanic ash.

There’s a wraparound porch wide enough for tables in the winter, and empty planters hanging off railings, covered in hemp cloth. She takes a step closer to the wooden stairs leading up, and there’s sign hanging on the door over a hook, reading _open_ in flowery cursive. It stands at odds with the architecture of the place, the décor of the lit-up sign proudly announcing most of its name. _Like a patchwork quilt_ , she thinks absently. 

“Girl,” calls an old man, “What’re you doin’ out there in the cold?”

There’s a lilt in his voice, like the twang of a banjo she’d heard a lifetime ago, when a walk and a bus and a ride hitched on the back of a pickup truck had brought her east. Almost to the ocean, a man with broad shoulders and slicked back hair that smelled of sandalwood, had told her, the banjo playing over his hand on her thigh. And perhaps it’d been the girl at the microphone’s whispered love song, or the fingers of leathery bourbon warming her belly and all over, but _almost_ had seemed so romantic then.

“Just passing through,” she mumbles, turning her face away. With her hands stuffed in her pockets, her fingers find the coins easily, the three quarters taunting her. _This is all you can afford_ ; a whiff of a meal and roofless shelter on the street.

The lines on the man’s craggy face deepen when he presses his lips together.

“You’ll catch your death out there,” he waves her over. “Come inside.”

She shakes her head, the feather pinned to her hair tickling the top of her ear. “It’s all right. I’m not staying long.”

He crosses his arms, silver creases folding along the sleeves of his jacket.

“I won’t ask again,” he says, the tone of his voice inviting no argument. “I’ve got the heater going inside, and warming your hands won’t cost you a dime.”

A dime is about all she might afford. But a warm place to sit and rest her aching legs, warm her frozen toes—it’s offered and nothing is free, she knows this. She knows, but the three quarters would buy her no more than this.

Eurydice climbs the steps up to the porch, the wood creaking under her boots.

“Name’s Hermes,” he says pushing open the door, and scowling up at the chorus of wind chimes that welcomes them when he opens the door. “You can call me Mr. Hermes.”

The boundary of his title, enforced by his directive, uninviting even as he invites her inside—the tension in her shoulders eases just the slightest bit. Familiarity bites. Formality; she trusts.

She’d gathered as much, but inside, Tipitina’s is very much a bar. Long glass shelves full of bottles, all varying degrees of empty. A long bar lining one side of the space, made of polished stone, set on thick, gleaming wood. As in most bars, the lights are dim, incandescent bulbs set in wrought iron fixtures welded to the wall. In the windowless corner, there’s a microphone on a tall stand, and a polished wooden lyre propped up against the wall.

“Where should I sit?” she asks, scanning the array of empty wooden tables, save for the couple in a corner booth by the window, sitting facing each other, their fingers tangled together.

Mr. Hermes grunts. “Do I look like a host to you? Find yourself a seat like the rest of them do.”

In the same flowery cursive labelling the front door, there’s a sign naming the swinging door off the side of the bar, kitchen. It remains shut, but through the gaps around the frame, the smells waft out. Roasted meat and melted butter and freshly baked bread. Fried potatoes dusted in salt. Nothing that her three quarters might buy.

_The table farthest from the bar it is, then._

And it’s a far cry from standing out in the cold. Here, she stretches her legs, gives her shoulders a reprieve from carrying her bag. The metal legs of the chair creak, and the wood on the table is scarred with initials and crudely drawn hearts. But it’s a place to sit. She tucks her bag under the table, holds it secure with her legs, careful to not touch the dried chewing gum stuck to the underside. It’s a roof and insulated four walls, and a coal burning stove circulating warmth.

For that alone, it’s better.

People begin to file in, men and women alike, wiping the dust from their shoes on the welcome mat. The bells ring incessantly, as they enter and exit, only to enter again. Mr. Hermes rarely greets the customers, but when he does it’s accompanied by a scowl and a curse at _those damned chimes_.

There’s a folded menu on each table, but they go largely untouched. Orders are shouted from memory, she supposes, addressed to Mr. Hermes, who can’t possibly be getting any of it. He has no pen or paper or anything that he might write it down with. But they call out and he grunts. It might be organized chaos if there was a rhyme or reason to it, but as it stands, it’s disorder, plain and simple.

“’Aight,” he yells, when the din turns into an alphabet soup of drink and dinner orders.

It’s a spell over the lot; orders come in single file, and soon after, the kitchen door swings open to a man balancing a plate in each hand. _Boy_ , the voice inside the kitchen had called him. He who had smashed a bruise into her stomach, dropped his groceries at her feet and ran.

By the cut of his jaw and the line of his shoulders— _he’s no child_.

He’s no server, either. He takes as many plates as his hands will carry, sets them down in front of customers one at a time. Gets it wrong half the time, though she can’t blame him; it’s guesswork, with neither table assignments, nor notes. It’s a small blessing that the bar is only half full of patrons. A full house and the food would be cold by the time he found its owner.

But the patrons’ moods aren’t soured by the abysmal service. There’s laughter and alcohol flowing freely, the conversation growing raucous when the drinks arrive before the food. Eurydice has neither food, nor drink. No complimentary basket of rolls she might fill her belly with. And it’s fine, she’s fine, she’s been far hungrier.

Desperation had brought her to the end of the line, opportunities dwindling as the winter stores dried out. There’s only so much a man might hire a girl for. She’d make do. She’d have to make do. With the match she takes and the candle she lights, a she breathes a futile prayer. _Please let it be alright_.

It’s ridiculous even as she covers the flame with her hands. When had the gods ever helped her?

They’d given her a sharp tongue and thick hair and dark eyes. A body that she could barter, for labour or otherwise. The otherwise for when there was no demand in the market for the regular sort of labour, and she’d—thought about it. Has thought about, thinks about it still. What might she barter her body for? Would it be her _self_ that she’d be trading, or would it be just her flesh?

Desperation comes and goes as the year switches from blazing hot to freezing cold and back again. She’s not there yet. _She isn’t._

“Come home with me,” the man who is and isn’t a boy says in a rush and Eurydice nearly falls over, the back legs of the chair she’d been leaning back on teetering out of balance.

He speaks in one breath but each word careful and enunciated, full of conviction. No preamble, no suave lines, no forward touches. Just a tall ask and no case for himself, save a twisted and torn paper something shoved at her face.

His name is Orpheus and he thinks her name is like a melody. Honeyed words, buoyed by the dreamy haze he exists in. It’s got artiste written all over it, his grasp on reality like a balloon filled with hot air, untethered. She’d crossed many a musician on this road to hell, all of them full of dreams and promises. And the thing with those promises—they’d tended to make those dreams contagious. Dangerous in this landscape; elbow grease can barely fill a belly, music is a luxury that coins are rarely spared for, if ever.

Eurydice shakes her head. “I’ve met too many men like you.”

“Oh no,” he shakes his head, “I’m not like that.”

She’ll believe it when she sees it.

“Make your case, _lover_ ,” she says sarcastically, “Why should I go home with you?”

Orpheus opens his mouth and closes it three times, starting and stopping and cutting himself off. He bites his lips and rubs at his head, in what must be a nervous tick. Finally settles on, “It’s not much, but it’s warm.”

She’d had a retort ready. Something to snap back and put him in his place, as she’d done for every musician, artist-adjacent since the last time she’d been stupid enough to believe in something she couldn’t touch. But she can’t remember what it was. A warm place to sleep.

_Could she?_

“And…” she starts, but she can’t finish.

A rowdy group of four leaves, yelling their goodbyes, adding teasing reminders for Orpheus to not break the dishes.

He hums to himself as he busses the table, sweet little tunes that sound out of order, bits of a work in progress, she assumes and then— _she doesn't care_. But he looks at her every now and again, just stands and stares, mouth open, as if lost in some daydream. Eyes alight with some gentle emotion she thinks might be hope, and—she knows nothing of that, wants nothing of it. Such fantasy only ever ends badly.

A liar and a player, she’d called him. As musicians always were, she’d met too many, to not spot the warning signs. He hadn’t even brought her something to eat, just a makeshift flower made of a twisted and torn newsprint. Worth nothing. Not even the offer of a drink. Just the paper flower and his home, offered to her in exchange for—she doesn’t know. Sex, she supposes, as all men want.

Desperation lurks, but at a distance. She’s got three quarters left.

“He’s not like any man you’ve met,” Mr. Hermes tells her, appearing out of nowhere, when she gets up to leave. “Think it through, girl.”

Eurydice knows better. She can’t afford to think this through.

She shoulders her bag and walks out of Tipitina’s, the chimes announcing her departure with its vibrant chorus.

The night is dark when she starts down the road. The streetlights feebly illuminate the road. In a town as small as this, this one street is all there is too see. The shops, the restaurants, the short-term lodging all lined up like schoolchildren. There’re fairy lights strung up outside, but they’ve gone dark, strings broken in places, swaying like the boughs of a fir tree.

The lights are still on in the window of the grocery store, though the only person she can see inside is the woman manning the counter. There’s a display behind the window to the right of the door, a pyramid of colourful jams and jellies in mason jars. _Ambrosia_ , is stenciled over the glass pane in the colours of the rainbow. Eurydice’s mouth waters. A drop of that jam and even the driest cracker would become a delicacy.

She’d settle for an aged bag of jerky at this point, but this side of winter, everything costs an arm and a leg. Her quarters cashed in will buy her a sleeve of saltines, and nothing else.

Hand curled around the coins, she trudges down the steps, and back down the street. The hotel advertises rooms starting at an even seventy-five dollars a night, and around-the-clock kitchen service. The motel is cheaper but not by much. Still far enough out of her budget, that she can’t even bring herself to stop. 

For a place to sleep and a bite to eat, she needs a job. But while the storefronts advertise overpriced merchandise she could never afford, not one offers employment. Eurydice is no beggar. She’d sooner sell her soul than hold out for handouts.

The mercury drops as the minutes tick by on the round-faced clock mounted to the town hall’s bell tower. If she doesn’t find a place to take shelter soon, she’ll freeze by the time the sun comes back around. But she has nothing to sell and only her body to barter.

_A home_ , Orpheus had offered her. Four walls to shelter her and a roof over her head. All for the small price of—whatever it is men want from her. Mr. Hermes might’ve promised he wouldn’t be like the others, but what did an old man understand of the others she had known?

Yet, as her options dwindle, she clings to the thought of him. The sweet smile on his face, the light in his eyes. The dimple pressed into the side of his cheek, deepening when he’d hum a particularly beautiful bar of whatever he was working on. Whatever else, musicians had never played out well for her, but this Orpheus with no artifice and no tact and arms and legs that more resemble a baby giraffe’s when he moves—there is something about him that makes her wish him to be the exception.

It’s her mind playing tricks, to make the only solution to her situation palatable. Eurydice knows this.

She doesn’t care.

The back door to Tipitina’s kitchen is wide open when she wanders back. Orpheus stands in the doorway, fiddling with his apron strings. He still doesn’t have a coat, and even with the heat at his back, he shivers. A crazy, impractical musician is what he is. She’s crazy for even considering it.

And yet.

When he looks up and spots her, standing paces away, his whole face lights up. “Eurydice,” he says, breathy and hopeful, and damn him for how her name sounds in his voice.

"You wanted to take me home?"

“Yes,” he nods.

She holds out her hand. "Well come on, then. Lead the way."

His hand is warm to the touch, rough in patches all over his fingers. Her own hand is tiny in his grasp, swallowed whole. This Orpheus; tall and skinny, pushed around by the demon in the kitchen. Perpetually wearing a blush, half of his mind in the clouds. Would he be her sanctuary?

_Home,_ he’d promised her. She’d sell any amount of flesh for a safe place to rest.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and as usual, i'm a flake. quarantine's been rough y'all lol. but in an effort to force myself into a little bit more creative productivity, here we are. :)

The lock on Orpheus’s door is rusted over. He fumbles through his pockets with one hand, dropping crumpled scraps of notepad paper on the dusty floor, apologizing with every breath. Still, he holds her hand tight, as if she might make a break for it if he lets go. Even as he struggles, reaching crosswise to his left pocket, he refuses to release her.

“Hold on a second,” she tells him, swallowing the ridiculous giggle that bubbles up in her gut. 

With her free hand, she reaches into his pocket, digging through the copious amounts of crumpled newsprint, until she finds something cold and metallic, with teeth on the end. It’s a skeleton key tied to a length of torn red cloth, frayed along the edges.

“You can open it,” he offers, “If you’d like.”

_A door for her to open_ ; Eurydice can’t remember the last time she’d had one of those. She fumbles with the key, using the end to push aside the flap. She jams it in the wrong way on her first try, the metal creaking angrily in protest. She turns it to try again, the end of the key scratching hideously against the surface of the lock. It takes try after try, of turning the key clockwise and then counter-clockwise, and then back again. Orpheus is entirely unhelpful, holding her left hand sandwiched between both of his, when she pulls her right out of his grip.

Finally, a wiggle and a twist to the right and the pins click. The doorknob turns and the hinges on the door groan as the door swings open. He beams down at her, eyes alight.

Eurydice swallows another ridiculous giggle.

Orpheus’s apartment, a second floor walk up on top of the liquor store, is little more than four walls and a roof. The door opens to empty space, a kitchen and what must be a dining area with a makeshift table; a piece of plywood over a rusted metal frame, and a single stool. There’s a trio of chairs lined up one side, each with a bent leg or a slanted wooden seat or a contorted backrest. Scavenged furnishings and do-it-yourself projects; she isn’t surprised. She’d expected as much, when he’d offered her that paper flower.

And still; it’s four walls more than she’d had, wandering the streets.

“Well?” she slips off her coat and hugs it to her chest, setting her bag down at her feet. “What can I do?”

“I can take your coat,” he offers, taking it from her and draping it over a hook on the barren tree in the foyer. “Do you want some tea? Lady Persephone left me some from her hibiscus garden, before she left for the winter.”

“Orpheus.” Six steps and she’s crossed the room to where he is. She curls her hands around the leather straps of his suspenders and yanks him close. Until he’s standing flush against her, so close she can feel the thrum of his heart. “You wanted me to come home with you.”

He swallows. “Yes. Yes I did.”

“Well then, lover,” she purrs, “What do you want me to do?”

“I…I don’t know,” he stutters.

“What about this?” she leans up on tiptoes and presses her mouth to his jaw.

His breath hitches. “Is this what you want to do?”

“That’s not important,” she takes him by the hand, leads him to the rightmost chair. It creaks when he sits, the legs teetering like a seesaw when she gently pushes him down with her hands on his shoulders, standing between his legs. “You brought me home. Tell me what you like.”

“Eurydice,” he chokes out. “I didn’t ask you to come home with me because I wanted _this_.”

Her grip on his shoulders tighten. “Well why did you, then?”

He looks down at his hands. “To talk to you, I guess. I just feel like I need to know you.”

_Need_ ; she could scoff. How fanciful a life did he lead if he had the luxury of using need in the context of this? A musician with his head in the clouds, by the state of his apartment, she should’ve guessed his grasp of the reality of this broken world to be less than practical.

“You _want_ to know me,” she corrects. “Need is something else, lover. Let me show you.”

“Eurydice,” he says gently, prying her hands off his shoulders and clutching her fingers. “Do you want this with me?”

“You’re giving me a choice?” She chokes on a laugh. “There is none. Not for a thing like me.”

“What do you want from me, then? What did you want with me?” he swallows. “You came back, you said you wanted to come home with me. Why?”

That she’d been cold and hungry, and he’d seemed decent enough that she might offer herself to him to solve one of those problems—she can’t explain that to him. He, who doesn’t understand the difference between need and want, or perhaps just places want before need. The wants of his mind over the needs of his body. She’d resigned herself to bartering her flesh. Her body for a place to sleep, it’d seemed reasonable. But it’s her he wants and not the physical of what she’s willing to trade. She’s not for sale. She’d come to him as her last resort, but she’d sooner freeze than barter her soul.

Eurydice can’t stay.

She picks up her bag, heaving it up over her shoulder, wincing as the strap bears down on that line of muscle in her back that’s ready to give out. “This was a mistake. I should go. I’m going to go.”

“I’m sorry,” he says in a rush, “If it’s something I’ve said or done, please, I’m sorry. You don’t have to go.”

“Look, I’m offering you sex and only that,” she squints at him. “But that’s not what you want, is it?”

He runs his fingers up his hair, mussing it even more. “Where will you go?”

What he doesn’t say: _he doesn’t want sex, if it’s something she’s offering for trade_.

She could laugh at his privilege.

“I’ll figure something out.” She picks her coat off the hook he’d draped it on. “Goodbye, Orpheus.”

The door closes gently behind her. She’ll find a way. She’ll have to.

The doors to the train station close at eight in the evening, but there’s no lock on the door. Just a deadbolt on the outside that slips open with a tug at the latch. The lights are turned off, and the heating system’s creaky old pipes that had whined all day are silent. Eurydice exhales in a huff of frost. The place hadn’t been inviting in the light of day, but in the dark of night, it’s downright haunted.

There are slabs of wood on concrete blocks serving as benches, placed intermittently along the station’s walls. Glass panes form the exterior walls, and the black sealant is broken in places. Day had brought a touch of warmth, the furnace heating the space, but the nights are colder and with the heating powered down, the chill creeps through the cracks.

Eurydice picks the bench farthest from the windows and sets her bag down. Months ago, she’d had bedding, a roll of blankets with a pillow sandwiched in the hollow. No bed of feathers, but something to lie on, something to cover her legs. That’s gone now, lost on a train somewhere in the Midwest. All that remains are the clothes off her back. The wool on her coat unravels in tufts, the silk slip she’d repurposed into a dress offers no warmth. Her stockings have runs, where they’d caught on hooks and nails, gauging the skin underneath. She’d bled and then healed, the torn flesh scabbing and then scarring, but the wounds to the delicate nylon weren’t so easily healed.

Her coat is her blanket, her bag, a pillow. She clutches it to her stomach, curling her legs up and around all her worldly possessions. Eurydice yawns, wincing as the movement sends a fresh wave of pain through her stomach; she’d journeyed so far and so long, and all for this. A bench in a train station and a worthless three quarters to her name. She’d slept sitting up on dirty hay, dozed off while standing, holding onto a railing inside a train car. There’d been a rhyme and a reason to that struggle then, she’d given up her feather bed for—honour. There’s no honour to being homeless in the winter; pride will neither feed her, nor provide her shelter.

Fatigue pulls her under now, she drifts, her eyes heavy.

But the wind picks up, the building rattles. Something tugs at her bag and she jerks awake, clutching the coarse canvas satchel so tightly her knuckles turn white. The door to the place had opened easily for her, it would be just as easy for someone else to come in take all she has. A meagre nothing, but _her_ nothing all the same.

And though the day—the days—had been interminably long, her eyes stay glued to the horizon as the morning light bleeds through the night.

She can’t do this again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> someone please slap me and force me to write lol

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi! i'm on tumblr at fashionkingcarney, and my main is evil-writer.


End file.
